Currently, most people are very familiar with the shutdown options of an operating system. In general, the shutdown options of an operating system have the following options to select from: Turn off, Restart and Log out, as well as a “Standby” option. Among these options, what are frequently used are Turn Off and Restart. If a user wants to leave work to go home and will not use his machine for a rather long time, he would turn off his computer. During working hours, a user often restarts the computer to validate some setting changes or to wake up a non-responding machine.
The shutdown option scheme of existing operating systems can be categorized into two types according to their default shutdown options.
The first type is the fixed default option scheme. For example, in some operating systems, “standby” is always the default option. In other operating systems, once the user clicks “Log out”, “Log out” will be the default option. A fixed default option is also used, in which the option selected most recently by the user is remembered.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the shutdown subsystem of an operating system using the fixed default shutdown option scheme and the related hardware architecture. FIG. 2 shows a shutdown operation flow using the fixed default option scheme. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a shutdown option list and specified fixed default shutdown option are stored in the system memory. After the user executes a shutdown operation through an input device such as a keyboard, a mouse or a shutdown button of the computer, the shutdown subsystem in the operating system will receive a shutdown signal through the bus controller, the CPU etc., and then obtain the stored shutdown option list and the fixed default shutdown option from the memory. The shutdown subsystem will set the fixed default shutdown option in the shutdown option list, and present to the user through a device such as a display, etc., a shutdown interactive window containing a shutdown option list that has been set with the fixed default shutdown option, so as to further execute a corresponding shutdown option operation or other operations according to the user's selection.
FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of the shutdown subsystem of an operating system using a default shutdown option scheme of remembering the latest shutdown option and the related hardware architecture. FIG. 4 shows a shutdown operation flow of the default shutdown option scheme of remembering the latest shutdown option scheme. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, a shutdown option list and the latest shutdown option selected by the user are stored in the system memory. After a user executes a shutdown operation through an input device such as a keyboard, a mouse or a shutdown button of a computer, the shutdown subsystem in the operating system receives a shutdown signal through the bus controller, the CPU etc., and then obtain the stored shutdown option list and the stored latest shutdown option selected by the user from the memory. The shutdown subsystem sets the latest shutdown option in the shutdown option list as the default shutdown option, and present to the user through a device such as a display, etc., a shutdown interactive window containing a shutdown option list that has been set with the default shutdown option, so as to further execute a corresponding shutdown option operation or other operations according to the user's selection. When the user selects in the shutdown interactive window to execute some shutdown option operation such as shutdown, restart, logout, and standby, etc., the shutdown subsystem updates the stored latest shutdown option with the shutdown option selected by the user, and then executes the shutdown option operation selected by the user. When the user does not select to execute a shutdown option operation, and instead executes an operation such as cancel, etc., the operating system executes a corresponding operation and does not store and update the latest shutdown option.
Although the above mentioned current shutdown option schemes are simple and direct, they do not provide a more human usability to the end user. It is not an on-demand solution, thus is not convenient for the user to use. In most cases, both the fixed default option and the default option of remembering the latest option cut off the relationship between shutdown options and user's current intention, are not what the user wants, and the user has to specify one option according to his intention. The scheme of the fixed default option only represents an initial setting, and does not reflect the current intention of the user. The scheme of remembering the latest option only represents the intention of the user when he shut down last time, and also does not represent the current intention of the user.
In an enterprise environment, a workstation generally keeps running in working hours. When a user presses the shutdown button after some settings, his intention often is to restart the computer to validate the settings. While in non-working hours, when the user press the shutdown button, this usually means the user has completed the work and wants to shut down the computer. Since the two default shutdown option schemes in the prior art do not consider and utilize the difference between the shutdown options usually used during working hours and non-working hours of the computer, they can not provide to the user a better shutdown experience.
In addition, when the user is installing an application program, the computer is frequently restarted, which in general is performed by the application program. The application program needs to query the user's opinion, and only after the user agrees that the computer can be restarted repeatedly, the application program can change the setting of the default shutdown option and restart the computer. After the installation is completed, the application program further needs to restore the original default shutdown option setting, and such a modification of the shutdown option setting brings trouble to the design of the application program; and if the user is absent, the installation program can only wait for the agreement of the user and can do nothing.
Therefore, there is needed a computer-working-hours-based shutdown option setting method and apparatus in the technical field.